Mesa Verde National Park and Unwanted Livestock

Southwest Colorado is easily one of the most beautiful areas of the West. Here the San Juan Mountains rise to more than 14,000 feet and send clear water cascading into the desert below. West of the Animas River Valley at Durango one finds small towns threading through green valleys; Mancos and Cortez. Above these towns looms the huge escarpment of cliffs; Mesa Verde National Park with its world renowned early Pueblo ruins, a beautiful land of giant junipers and deep canyons.

Mesa Verde has been a national park since 1906 when Theodore Roosevelt understood the need to protect the artifacts in the area from looters like the Wetherill brothers who rediscovered the great ruins at Cliff Palace in 1888 and spread the word while selling artifacts taken from the site. (Richard Wetherill went on to systematically loot the ruins at Chaco Canyon before the federal government was able to put laws in place to stop him and others.) Mesa Verde is a World Heritage Site.

Today, Mesa Verde attracts almost 600,000 visitors a year and the National Park Service greets them in a new visitor center while providing guided ranger walks to the most sensitive cliff dwelling sites. Yet most of the 52,000 acre park is a large wild area, filled with archaeological sites and wilderness.

The National Park Service has a mandate from Congress to protect archeological sites at Mesa Verde from destruction. This is their main mission at the Park just as it is at Bandelier National Monument. The NPS is facing a growing problem with feral horses and cattle in the backcountry of the park which are trampling ruins and springs and destroying native vegetation. Livestock are specifically prohibited inside the national park by federal law.

The NPS reports that 80 unclaimed horses roam the park along with at least 12 cows. These animals congregate around the few water sources in the park where locally rare plants and water are needed by native wildlife. Horses can weigh more than a thousand pounds and compact soils and turn riparian areas to hard mud.

The Park Service is proposing to remove these livestock from the park by various methods over the next two years. The NPS plans to have the animals rounded up and shipped away. The nearby Ute Tribe may claim the cattle if they wish but the horses have few possible takers since wild horse herds plentiful on public lands throughout the West.

In the 1980s, the National Park Service allowed horse advocates to round up feral burros in Bandelier National Monument near Santa Fe but the rugged landscape prevented the wranglers from catching more than a few. The remaining burros were shot and the herd has not rebuilt itself. This method could work at Mesa Verde as well.

The NPS is asking for your comments on their livestock problem at Mesa Verde. Mesa Verde must be a rare island of livestock free wilderness. To comment go to bit.ly/2JL0CFK.

Mesa Verde is worth many many visits.